


Something More

by JayceCarter



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Character Study, Drinking, F/M, Flirting, No Smut, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 16:09:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13744545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayceCarter/pseuds/JayceCarter
Summary: Reyes has no illusions about the man he is, the man he's always been. He is a smuggler, a liar, a runner, and those things have never bothered him before. However, when the pathfinder sees something more inside him, he realizes he wants to be the man she thinks he is.





	Something More

Who would have thought a girl so small could hold her alcohol so well? Or his attention?

 

Reyes held the whiskey bottle since Sara would throw up should she drink any more of it. She’d tried to steal it back a few times, but her reflexes had suffered after the first few shots. They’d polished off most of it anyway, an impressive feat given just the two of them.

 

“Why did you say there was more to me when we confronted Zia?”

 

Sara leaned her shoulder against his, their legs swinging over the ledge, staring out over Kadara Port. “Because there is.”

 

“How would you know? You hardly know me.”

 

She didn’t answer his question, her gaze out on the people below them. “I asked SAM, after my father died, why he picked me. Cora had the seniority, she had the training. It should have been her job. It was an easy choice, really. I never even wanted to be Pathfinder. Do you know why SAM said he did it?”

 

“Because your father loved you?”

 

Sara laughed, breaking into a hiccup at the end. “No. I mean, he did, but his work was important. No, he picked me because he saw something in me, something I didn’t know was there, something I never realized. The fact he picked me, it made me want to live up to it, to make him right about me.”

 

“And that applies exactly how?”

 

“I see something in you. I saw it the first time I met you. You’re capable of more than people realize, more than you realize.”

 

“Well, that is quite the sweet thought. I’m not sure it’s accurate, but sweet all the same.”

 

Sara set her hand on his thigh, high off the knee, no mistaking it for anything other than the offer it was. “Sometimes it takes someone else saying it to realize what we’re capable of, to realize what we want to be that we never realized we wanted to be.”

 

Reyes stared at where her hand gripped his thigh, at the strange point of contact. It drew him back to the storage room, to the way her lips had moved against his, her hands wrapped in the lapels of his vest.

 

What a kiss. He’d expected to make up some story about their presence, to say they’d gotten lost or heard a sound, but then Sara had pulled him close and stolen that kiss, and he’d forgotten the whole reason he’d been there in the first place. It wasn't the finesse of it, not finely crafted skills, but rather the spontaneity. It was the passion, the taste of something they'd both wanted but resisted.  

 

Sara leveraged herself to her unsteady feet. “Let’s go somewhere a little more private.”

 

He followed her lead; he wasn’t the sort of man to turn down an offer like that. Sometimes there was no better way to pass the time than inside a warm and willing body.

 

She turned to step off the boxes, but her foot caught the edge. She toppled, pitching forward into the walkway, just a collection of drunken limbs.

 

Reyes stood too far to do anything but watch the spectacle, especially once a pained grunt turned into slurred laughter.

 

“I think you’re done, Pathfinder.” He crouched beside her then drug her arm up around his shoulder.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Protecting your virtue. We are in Kadara Port, a bastion of lust and sin and depravity. Who knows what could happen to you in this state.” Another moment of maneuvering and he hoisted her up and over his shoulder. “Do try not to throw up on me, however. It would ruin the mood.”

 

Sara didn’t struggle as he carried her toward the Tempest. He could have taken her to a local room, but he didn’t spend the night with women, and leaving her drunken and alone afterward didn’t sit well with him.

 

Cora tilted her head when he reached the docking bay door. “So,I take it the party was a success?”

 

“Any party where I take a girl home is a success.” Reyes tripped, catching himself on the doorframe. It seemed he’d reached his limit as well, and hauling a plastered Pathfinder around was nearly a step too far.

 

The rest of the trip to her quarters went without incident. An angara pointed toward a door at the end of a hallway, telling him he looked as lost as he felt on the ship. He spent so much time on Kadara, he rarely ventured into space anymore. All the metals and tiny hallways closed in on him.

 

He wavered through the last doorway, into her quarters, and nearly dropped her at the sight. He’d done well for himself, but he’d never seen a view like this. She had a wall of space, the stars spread out like her own personal lullaby.

 

It seemed life as a pathfinder was not without its benefits.

 

Of course, she’d earned those. He’d heard stories of her after she’d come to see him, after they’d worked together to free the angara traitor. She’d excelled when all others had lost hope, when they’d all given up and rolled over. She didn’t roll over.

 

At first, he could hardly believe they spoke of this girl. She’d stood by the bar, looking like any other Nexus girl, and he’d figured there’d have to been a mistake.

 

Too soft, too clean, too willing to see the world in black and white.

 

That sort of person didn’t last long in Kadara. They didn’t last long in Andromeda at all. The place was too harsh, too mired in grey to abide by such people.

 

She hadn’t even been attractive. Nose too big, lips thin, body utilitarian when he normally like a bit of sultry.

 

Still, in the time since, he’d gained a new appreciation. Some people, they were right out there for you to see all of them. He could read them in moments, decide what he thought of them, figure them out.

 

Others? The rare few? They took him by surprise.

 

Sara was one of those. Her bravery, her optimism, they became her. Each time they spoke, when the subtle flirts became less subtle, he saw more. Those things changed her until the imperfections he’d noticed melded into something so much more. It was like she said; sometimes other people saw things you didn’t.

 

Yeah, she wasn’t some dancer at Tartarus, she wasn’t a woman who swayed her hips and whispered filthy things into his ears in the backroom of a seedy bar.

 

No, Sara was something else.

 

Something currently spread out on her bed, drunk and ready to make bad choices with him. Normally just his type.

 

“Join me?”

 

“I thought I was keeping you safe from unsavory people.”

 

“You also said you’d not be a gentleman if I wanted. That’s exactly what I want.” She fumbled with the zipper of her jacket, working it down, then pulled it off. It fell to the floor when she tossed it.

 

The temptation to do exactly as she asked drew him in. He’d never been someone to say no to things he wanted. It got him into smuggling, into leaving the Nexus. Hell, it got him out into Andromeda.

 

So far, that hadn’t gone so poorly. It meant his instincts weren’t so far off, and his instincts said he should follow this woman into bed, that he should strip her down and taste every inch of her.

 

His lips found hers, their breaths mixing, heavy with whiskey and all the unresolved tension from weeks of flirting.

 

Her hands, clumsy with alcohol, clutched at his shoulders as she wrapped her leg around his hip.

 

He found her stomach with his fingers, dipping them below the hem of her shirt, sliding up to the warmth of her ribs, to the line of her bra. His tongue traced her bottom lip, begging her to open for him, to let him in somehow.

 

Sara let her tongue mimic his before she arched her neck to offer her throat.

 

An offer Reyes would never refuse.

 

He lavished attention to her throat, to the ridges at the front, to each dip, each hollow. She tasted of Kadara dust, but everything did. It was the taste of home, anymore.

 

Sara’s fingers slid into his hair, gripping him, holding him against her. “I’ve been thinking about this, you know?”

 

He responded, voice against her pulse, so close his lips brushed her skin. “I might admit to some less than innocent thoughts I've had about you as well.”

 

She moaned, heavy and low in the quiet room. “I’ve been running around out here with no idea what I’m doing. I just, I keep trying and hoping things work out. You’re the first thing I think I’ve gotten right.”

 

Her words froze him.

 

She didn’t even know who he was, not really. She was drunk, he was lying to her, and they knew nothing about each other. Sex was easy. Sex he could manage. Why did she have to go and make it complicated?

 

She arched her back, pressing her chest against his to tempt him further, but it only had him drawing away.

 

He moved off the bed, pulling away from her. “We should call this a night.”

 

Sara frowned, her arms crossing over her chest, curling in on herself. That was the face of one hurt woman, and it’d be best if he left before hurt turned into anger. “Really? You’re leaving? Now?”

 

“It’s late, dear, and I’m not as young as I used to be. I’ll-" he drew in a shaky breath hidden beneath a smile,  "- I'll call you.”

 

He fled. Despite his smirk, his arrogance, all the ways he hid his unease, he fled with her words stuck in his head.

 

She’d said she believed there was more to him.  She'd said it when she’d had no reason to trust him, no reason the think anything of him. She was the only person to ever believe that, to ever think he could be more than the worthless smuggler who chased caps and never paid his bar tabs.

 

So, he fled so he could be that person she saw, so maybe he could do something right. Enough time, enough choices, maybe he could live up to whatever it was she thought she saw inside of him.

 

He might have destroyed his one chance with her since no woman enjoyed being turned down or left horny in a bed alone, but he couldn’t stand the idea of her looking at him after she found out who he really was. If he slept with her then, when he was still lying to her, he’d be the man everyone else saw.

 

No. No matter what it might cost him, he wanted to be the man she thought he was.

 

So he left her alone, tore himself away from what he wanted, even as against his nature as it was.

 

He’d prove to her and to himself that he could be something more.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm dipping my toes into a new fandom here (well, my second attempt. My first sent me crying back to my normal fandom). Forgive me any issues here as I feel my way through so much new stuff. So, this is short and a very slow easing into the ME:A waters. Thanks :)


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